International Disaster Risk Reduction Day

“Disaster risk management is like an orchestra, you need all the pieces of the musical ensemble to align and harmonize for it to work”

Disaster Management and Co-ordination

A good disaster management and coordination of any sort is like a harmonizing choir, where melodies merges in harmony and aligns to form beautiful songs. The choir, the instrumentalists all relies on the conductor; a good conductor leads its melody to great heights, a bad conductor leads its melody to ruins. If even one of the vocals are not aligning, the whole song collapse.

Disaster management and coordination are the same, whereby you deal with different first responders; from government leaders, health workers, firefighters, early warning officers, police officers and the local communities. Disaster management officers are the conductors and first responders are singers, instrumentalists, whereby the communities are the rest of the choir. Everyone has a role to play in order to attain a harmonizing outcome. Just in this instance, lives are at risk, properties are at risk, the economy is at risk.

Disaster Management and Coordination revolves around mistakes or in disaster they like to use the term “lesson learnt”. A great example of a case study is the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai Volcanic Eruption which occurred on 15th January 2022 in the country of Tonga. A submarine volcano erupted 58km into the mesosphere (was visible from space) followed by 15m tsunami waves. According to NASA, this eruption was 100 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped in Hiroshima, Japan during the Second World War. The eruption was heard from neighboring countries such as New Zealand and Fiji and as far away as Alaska. During this catastrophic event, first responders (including the army) and Tonga’s National Emergency Management Office (NEMO) officer’s mental and physical stability was shattered to a point that they forgot their Standard Operation Procedures (SOP), and how to coordinate and respond as they have been trained to for years. This lead to response delays of outer islands and a host of other issues, but that is another story. What we can learn from this, is how to coordinate and remember your trainings in an event as great as this, by stimulating more realistic drill exercises in the near future.

Is Seychelles Disaster Ready?

In the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) for Small Island Development States (SIDS), Seychelles is rank at 32 MVI values of the most Vulnerable SIDS (High Vulnerability: Countries with MVI values between 32 and 43) in terms of Environmental, Geographic, Economic and Financial. What are the disasters in Seychelles?  The most common disasters here have been floodings, ammonia leaks, landfill fires, public building fires, pandemic (Covid-19), tsunamis (Indian Ocean Tsunami 2004), cyclone tails (rare) and landslides. How ready was Seychelles during the disasters events? Were their lives lost? Is the public aware of the colour codes alert and its meaning? Is the public aware of their shelters locations on the islands? How resilient are you? What does the government do to prepare for future disasters?

What can we do to strengthen Coordination and be Disaster Ready?

In disaster, there are four phases to a disaster management; preparedness, response, recovery and prevention. These phases are key notes to a harmonizing coordination and management. If coordination skills are lacking in the disaster set up, we simply have to prioritize coordination, by seeking professional help from neighboring countries or simply adapting to best practices. As an example a team of experts in coordination should be training the local officers and first responders for coherent coordination in the near future.

Another example is to raise community and schools awareness, disseminating the information to help prepare them for future risks, which demands frequent engagements with the communities and schools.  

Lesson Learned

Mistakes are part of life; repeated mistakes are no longer mistakes but a choice. In disaster management, mistakes are guidelines to future successes once learnt.  Lesson learned is design to analyze mistakes and efficiency of managing resources and response time during an incident or a disaster. Its main outcome is how can we improve and be better in order to minimize the risks to lives, properties and the economy.

In remembrance of this International Disaster Risk Reduction Day, we remember those who lost their lives during disaster events, and Thank You to the first responders and the disaster coordinators for your heroic efforts.

#internationaldisasterriskreductionday2022 #drr   

Happy DRR Day.

Island Carbon Consult